Tonight's Entertainment
Watch: Liberty Of London. Indulge in more privilege-fetishising by watching really rich people buy stuff in the last of the show’s current run (C4, 9pm).
See: East India Youth. The Mercury nominee will be at London’s Southbank Centre supporting Owen Pallett and playing with members of the Aurora Orchestra before heading to Brighton to play DRILL festival on Saturday.
Also see: Alfie Brown: Divorced From Reality (And My Wife) at the Soho Theatre in London, in which the comic muses on the very nature of truth itself. In a fun way.
Video girls
From girls online to girls on film (also online): here are some girls who have launched new music videos today.
Wronged woman Charli XCX slurps milkshake/sings break-up anthem amid hole in space-time continuum in which it is still 1995.
London trio Vaults have launched a video for their track Vultures on fashion photography ledge Nick Knight’s site SHOWstudio: you can watch it here. Directed by Spanish artist Rei Nadal, it’s squarely aimed at fans of eyeballs and/or clumpy mascara.
And finally, here is East Londoner and girl Denai Moore’s new video for I Swore, which is actually more of a study in masculinity, starring a young boy doing all manner of hard things such as having a pint.
Sorry but Zoella is now the most successful author of ALL TIME. (Sort of).
Talking of Zoella (who, for the record, I actually think is probably the least despicable example of the vlogging profession), her novel Girl Online has just become the fastest-selling hardback of the year AND the fastest-selling debut novel since records began in 1998. The book follows a girl who writes a blog (as opposed to having a YouTube channel - so probably falls within the historical novel genre), and despite the fact that I quite like Zoella - maybe because she seems approximately 3.6% less inane than her industry contemporaries - even I have to admit that it is bad. Very bad. This bad.
Trophy strife
The Brits have today revealed the Tracey Emin-designed statuette they’ll be handing out to Ed Sheeran et al next February. Best known for her in yer face installations like her knicker-strewn unmade bed, Emin’s gone full sickly giftshop item with this pale pink rosette-backed design, covered in saccharine handwritten messages that read “Congratulations on your talent on your life. On everything you give to others thank you.”
They may as well have asked Zoella.
Who's behind Blue Eye? It's Menace Beach, of course
Here’s Blue Eye, the new track from Leeds band Menace Beach, a DIY supergroup of sorts, featuring an ever-changing cast of musicians including members of Hookworms and Sky Larkin*. It’s a droney, slow-burning ballad, calling to mind Best Coast being backed by Sun O))), and manages to somehow be both peaceful and VERY LOUD. Not sure how they’ve done that, but fair play.
Incidentally, for an extensive look at the current state of the DIY scene, from music to film and beyond, check out this Saturday’s Guide.
*They’ve also had Paul Draper of 90s prog-britpoppers Mansun performing backing vocals on a 6Music session, which gives me a rare opportunity to remind everyone how criminally underrated Mansun’s Prisoner-themed album Six is , an opportunity which I’m going to grasp with both hands:
Jared Leto as the Joker: the internet reacts (ineptly)
Guardian Film has casting news for Suicide Squad, the forthcoming DC supervillain movie, and it looks like Jared Leto will be taking on the role of the Joker. For those struggling to picture what Leto might look like in Joker form, here are some (slightly rubbish) mock-ups, courtesy of Twitter, most of which just end up looking a bit like Willem Dafoe:
Wowza! @JaredLeto is the new #Joker. Trying to not act like a major fan-girl & contain my excitement! #SuicideSquad pic.twitter.com/1yY9TubSgu
— Noor Al-Hajri (@noornet) December 3, 2014
@JaredLeto Congratulations for your new role! I'm sure it's gonna be amazing ! #SuicideSquad #joker pic.twitter.com/g0x64sPfIj
— L△̶URA (@_laurabel) December 3, 2014
Jared Leto as The Joker --- Looking forward to the Leto-style tranformation. pic.twitter.com/L9u0glr95R
— JARED LETO IS JOKER (@30STMVOTE) December 2, 2014
Jared Leto is the new Joker in official Suicide Squad cast http://t.co/3PNVKfntQF pic.twitter.com/xqCVrnAYWT
— The AV Club (@TheAVClub) December 2, 2014
Suicide Squad will hit cinemas in 2016, by which time we should be thoroughly over these all-consuming, multi-strand superhero ensemble pictures
Scorsese and Jagger's HBO show is GO
HBO have given a series order to Untitled Rock ‘n’ Roll Project (that name needs work, guys), a 70s-set drama about New York’s rock scene created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter. Bobby Cannavale, who was bloody great as Gyp Rosetti in Winter’s Boardwalk Empire, will star, with Guide cover star Juno Temple and, intriguingly, Ray Romano in support.
Hopefully Mick will turn up as himself at some point too, as it’s usually good when that happens:
Updated
Gangnam Style breaks YouTube
A rare bit of tech news on the Guide Daily: so many people have watched Gangnam Style on Youtube that the site’s counter briefly exploded. Apparently it was something to do with integers. Here’s YouTube themselves with the science bit:
We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer (=2,147,483,647 views), but that was before we met PSY. “Gangnam Style” has been viewed so many times we have to upgrade!
Anyway they’ve now switched to a 64-bit integer and have added a jokey little graphic to the video’s counter to celebrate this monumental event. Of course in order to see the graphic you’ll have to click on the video and give Psy yet another page hit, thereby increasing the chances of this whole palaver happening again. Silly YouTube.
